


to prefer fictional worlds

by abstractwatercolor



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Alternate Universe - Human, Camp Pining Hearts, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Characters Writing Fanfiction, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peridot & Squaridot Are Twins, Peridot Is A Fanfic Writer, Peridot Is a BNF, Slow Burn, and they were ROOMMATES
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-02-18 13:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractwatercolor/pseuds/abstractwatercolor
Summary: Peridot Olivine is a Camp Pining Hearts fan. So is practically everyone, but being a fan is Peridot's life. Or, at least, it has been. But now it's her first year at college and her first year not doing everything with her twin sister. Faced with new experiences, intriguing professors, and a cute but surly roomate, Peridot is forced to figure out how to balance the world of fandom with the real one.





	1. Chapter 1

_**Camp Pining Hearts**_ **(TV series)**

 **Genre**                                 Teen drama / Soap opera

 **Starring**                               

  * Ian Zuke
  * Zachary Florido
  * Jasmin Quartey



**Country of origin** Canada

 **Original language(s)**           English

 **No. of series**                         5

 **No. of episodes** 110 (List of episodes)

 **Running time**                        85-90 minutes

 **Original run** 8 January, 2013 -- Present

 

Camp Pining Hearts is a Canadian television teen drama and soap opera following a group of teenagers as they spend their summers at the titular sleepaway camp. Created by Xander Hershey, the show stars Ian Zuke as protagonist Percy Dietz, Zachary Florido as Percy’s rival, Pierre Rabara, and Jasmin Quartey as Paulette Hall, the beautiful girl torn between them. The first season aired in 2013, with seasons two through five airing from 2014 to 2017. After a hiatus, a sixth season is set to be released in 2019.

Critical reception has been mixed, with many reviews praising the quality of the writing, performances, and direction, while others have criticized the program as cliché and applying many tropes of teen dramas and soap operas deemed as overused.

           _From Encyclowikia, the people’s encyclopedia_

* * *

  There was a boy in her room.

 A young boy, young enough that he didn’t seem like he had any business in a college dorm (Maybe he was one of those wiz kids you heard about that went to college at ten, or something?). But there he was, humming cheerfully as he pulled a blue sheet onto one of the two thin beds in the dorm room, curly head bobbing along with the tune of the song.

Peridot glanced down at the paper in her hand. _Barnes Hall 226._ This was room 226, but maybe it wasn’t Barnes Hall. All the dorm buildings here looked alike, in an almost creepily uniform sort of way.

Turning, the boy spotted her, and beamed as though she was the best thing he’d seen all day. He had a mop of dark, curly hair, and wide eyes such a dark brown they looked almost black. His smile stretched out his chubby cheeks, and it reminded Peridot of a cartoon child, an embodiment of innocence.

“Hi! You must be Peridot!” He stuck out his hand, and Peridot fought the urge to take a step back. She was carrying a box anyhow, what did he expect her to do?

“Yeah.” She said faintly, a panicky little fluttering starting up in her stomach. This was a mistake, this had to be a mistake. Barnes was a co-ed dorm, but she didn’t think there was any such thing as co-ed _rooms_. They couldn’t expect her to room with a boy, even a boy who looked like he’d have to look up “puberty” in a dictionary.

The boy took the box from her hands – Surprising, since he was young and a bit on the tubby side, and Peridot had considered it somewhat heavy – and sat it on the bed that didn’t yet have a sheet, which Peridot assumed must be the one she was meant to take. She took his moment of distraction from her to take another look at her room assignment. Was this _Lapis Launiu?_

“You must have more stuff downstairs, right? We just finished bringing stuff up, but we can totally help you. And later we’re gonna go to The Best Diner In The World! Have you ever been there?”

Stunned by his rapid-fire speech, Peridot shook her head.

“It’s got the greatest breakfast food ever, you gotta try it sometime. Hey, maybe you could come along with us!”

Before Peridot could think of a polite way to reject that idea, the boy caught sight of something over her shoulder and gasped. “Hey, Lapis, check it out, your roomie’s here!”

A girl stepped around her, taller than Peridot and rail-thin, with dark skin and dyed-blue hair with dark roots starting to show. She seemed disinterested, almost bored, but she offered a small smile in the boy’s direction, and a soft, “Thanks, Steven.”

Peridot felt her shoulders relax, if only slightly. At least the whole co-ed dorm idea wasn’t an actual possibility. Chipper as Steven seemed, Peridot didn’t think she’d be comfortable sharing a living space with him. Really, she wouldn’t be comfortable sharing a room with _anyone_ at all. With a singular exception. When she had filled out the housing forms to get a place in the dorms, she had put her sister down as her roommate without a second thought.

* * *

  _We can’t share a room our whole lives,” Sage had said, her knees pressed against Peridot’s as they sat on her sister’s bed, two sets of enrollment papers spread out in the gap of bedspread between them._

_"We’ve been doing it for eighteen years,” Peridot had protested, “Why mess with what works?”_

_Sage made a face then and Peridot had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop her own face from mimicking her twin’s expression._

_“If we do everything together, Peri, college will be just like here. It’ll take four whole years for anyone to be able to tell us apart.”_

_“They could tell if they paid attention,” Peridot murmured, brushing her hand against the edge of her sister’s right eye --  Sage had a birthmark there, a slight discoloration in the area around the eye. It wasn’t as noticeable as the mark on Peridot’s forehead, but still, it was there._

_“We have to be our own people at college,” Sage insisted, scrunching her face in that way Peridot knew always meant she was going to dig her heels in and refuse to have her mind changed. The Stubborn One, that was Sage._

_She decided not to mention that the idea of college itself was so terrifying that she wasn’t sure she could handle it without the comfort of something familiar._

_It wasn’t the last time the rooming issue was discussed in the Olivine household but it was the last time Peridot had bothered putting up much resistance to her twin’s bold, exciting plans for her Wonderful New Adventure._

* * *

 “If you’ve got issues with things being in place, feel free to move my shit,” Lapis Launiu offered carelessly, dropping another cardboard box  --  Identical to the one Peridot had been holding moments before  –  onto the bed Steven had been making. At least that was one small comfort. If the other girl seemed as unenthused over living with a stranger as Peridot herself was, that would spare her the awkward, confusing attempts at stilted small-talk that she had been dreading.

 (Sage had already been in contact with her roommate, an upperclassman named Heidi, and they were already swapping emails and streaks on Chatclick and dragging Peridot along behind them while they bought matching desk lamps at Supermart).

Before Peridot could work up a reply, her roommate swept out the door, her companion following with a little wave and a soft “Bye, Peridot,” as he left.

Releasing a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding, Peridot dropped onto the naked bed that had been dubbed hers, careful not to catch herself on the edges of the box, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. Things being in place was the least of her issues.

At the moment, the biggest issue was calming herself. Working the anxiety she could feel wrapping itself like a thick black static around her lungs into a tiny ball and forcing it down into her belly where she could at least work around it. Any moment now, Sage and their mom would be getting upstairs. If Mom saw Peridot freaking out, she would freak out herself, and Sage would act like they were both doing it on purpose to ruin her big First Day Plans.

“This is really nice,” said a voice from the doorway, and Peridot looked up to see her mother standing there with a laundry basket full of books in her arms.

“It’s not nice, Mom,” she replied, “It’s like a hospital room, but smaller. And with no TV.”

“You’ve got a great view of campus, though,” Sage offered, squeezing past their mother and wandering over to the window, “My room faces a parking lot.”

“How do you know?” Peridot asked.

“I looked it up on Google Earth.”

Their mom sat the laundry basket down on top of the cardboard box on the bed and wrapped an arm around Peridot’s shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“I know,” Peridot sighed, and yet the unspoken worry that _maybe it wouldn’t be_ lingered in her head like an itch she couldn’t reach.

“Alright ladies,” Mom said, clapping her hands together with an air of authority, “Next stop, Prism Hall. Second stop, pizza buffet. Last stop, my sad and lonely nest.”

“No can do, Mom,” Sage chirped breezily, “Heidi promised to take me to this move-in night barbeque thing,” Pausing, she shot a pointed glance at Peridot, “Peri should come, too.”

“ _Yes_ , pizza buffet,” Peridot said defiantly.

“Your sister is right, baby, you should go meet new people,” Mom prodded.

Peridot shook her head. “All I’m going to be doing for the whole semester is meeting new people. Today, I want to go to a pizza buffet with my mom.”

Sage rolled her eyes.

“Off to Prism Hall, my dears?” Their mother shuffled towards the door.

“You can come back for me when you’re done dropping Sage off,” Peridot said, “I want to start unpacking.”

Sage didn’t argue, simply following their mother out into the hall. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said without looking back.

“Sure,” Peridot replied faintly as the door closed.

* * *

 Unpacking felt good. Putting sheets on the bed, lining her new, stupidly expensive textbooks up on the shelf above the worn secondhand desk at the end of the bed. It was soothing, organizing everything in an orderly manner. She even felt herself smile at bit as she spread her new blanket onto the bed. Sage had insisted, during one of the many college shopping trips she had forced her sister on, that Peridot buy something. Reluctantly, Peridot had chosen something that caught her eye  --  A throw blanket, the same light green as her new sheets for her dorm, but with darker green alien heads with red bowties decorating it. It was weird and cute and oddly comforting. As she smoothed it out over the comforter, she found herself thinking, _Any advice in your big head, little buddy?_

Laughing to herself, she shook her head. Not even a full day at Keystone University and she was already losing her marbles. Turning to a box of more personal things, she fished out a photo of herself and Sage, and pinned it up on the corkboard on the wall by the desk. It was a sweet photo, taken at graduation. Both of them in those hideous yellow graduation robes, arms looped around each other, beaming at the camera. That was before Sage had cut her hair.

Not even Peridot had been warned about that. Sage had just come home one day after work with her hair in a cute, almost-squarish bob. It looked amazing on her, which probably meant it would look amazing on Peridot, but now that Sage had gotten that haircut, Peridot never could. It was like some unspoken law. _Thou shalt not copy thy twin’s hairdo._

On the shelf by her textbooks went a framed photo of their mother, the one that had always sat on their dresser at home. It had been taken on her wedding day, and she looked especially beautiful. Rather than the traditional white of a bridal gown, she wore a dress of a vibrant, shimmering green. Peridot had always found that amusing, a woman named Esmeralda getting married in an emerald gown. When she was younger, she had thought her mom had done it simply to make a statement, or maybe a pun. Now, knowing the story she did about her parents, she had to admit it was a lovely dress for one found on such short notice.

Sometimes, if she peered at the image close enough, she thought she might detect something under the green dress, a tiny swelling that would become herself and her twin. But other times it seemed more like just a trick of the light.

At the bottom of the box were Peridot’s Percy and Pierre posters. She laid those out carefully on the bed  --  Some of them were collectors’ editions, and a few were originals, lovingly drawn or painted just for Peridot. She would have to choose which to hang up carefully; there wasn’t enough room on the corkboard for all of them, and she had already resolved not to hang any on the walls where Lapis Launiu and the rest of the world would notice.

She picked out three of her favorites: Percy lying on a log by a campfire, eyes closed and expression serene. Pierre at the finish line of a race, hands thrust upward in exhausted triumph. The two of them walking hand-in-hand down a worn dirt path, hair rippling in the wind.

Peridot pinned them up with as much gentleness as she could manage, and sat down in the beat-up old desk chair. If she sat there, with her back to her roommate’s bare side of the dorm, it almost felt like home.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because the muses have been kicking my ass rather than working with me, I'm here giving you all a new WIP rather than updating my older fics. Steven Universe has been a show (and fandom!) that has really been a comfort to me since I discovered it, and by writing a Steven Universe fic based on my favorite book, which is about fandom (Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, you should all try to read it), I guess this is my little love letter to fandom.


	2. Chapter 2

Welcome to OurLibrary.net! We’re a fan-created, fan-run nonprofit archive of fandom works. Read and write any fan content you want, and enjoy your stay!

_From OurLibrary, an online fanworks archive_

* * *

In stories, when people woke up in places other than their usual sleeping place, they always had a moment of disorientation where they couldn’t remember where they were. This had never happened to Peridot, but it was strange to hear her familiar alarm going off in such an unfamiliar environment. Sitting up, she fumbled around for her glasses for a moment before finding them, sliding them on, and shutting off the alarm.

Her roommate’s bed looked entirely unused. Apparently, Lapis Launiu hadn’t returned, even after Peridot had fallen asleep. Well, alright then.

Peridot knew where the bathroom on this floor was, but she didn’t quite feel brave enough yet to venture into a communal shower. Making sure the door was locked and the window was covered, she opted instead to simply change into some fresh clothes. Afterward, though, there was another dilemma to address: Her stomach was rumbling. She could try to go to the dining hall, but she didn’t actually know where it was. And, beyond that, what was she supposed to do when she got there? Where was she supposed to sit? Or line up? What should she do with the tray when she was done? People would stare and her and it would be awkward and uncomfortable and humiliating and…

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, pressing her hands over her chest and trying to force her rapidly-spiraling thoughts to stop, or at least slow. Taking a deep breath, she swiped a granola bar from her stash under the bed. She had twelve boxes of them and three giant jars of peanut butter. If she paced herself, she might not have to worry about the dining hall for at least a couple of months.

Her overactive brain soothed at least for the moment, she took a seat at the desk chair and flipped open her laptop. Deciding to quell the ever-rising anxiety of this move  --  this change  --  with something familiar, she clicked a tab open to Cheeper. As expected, her mentions were full of readers wringing their hands because she hadn’t posted a new chapter of _Pine On_ yesterday.

_I miss my usual feels trip, just saying!_

_Gah! I need my daily Piercy!_

Though most of the comments were playful and encouraging, to Peridot, they felt like demands. When she had first started writing, she had made sure to try to respond to every comment and feedback she received. They felt validating, like little gold stars at the top of her homework papers in elementary school. But then, _Pine On_ had taken off.

Peridot had been writing Camp Pining Hearts fic for years, but _Pine On_ was her most ambitious project yet. Rather than being inspired by the show, or framed as a deleted scene or spin-off, _Pine On_ was written as though it _was_ the next season of Camp Pining Hearts. During the hiatus, tons of fans had been writing season six fics, especially as the release of the real one drew nearer. When she first started it, Peridot’s reader base had remained fairly the same. But then one of the fandom heavyweights on Toplr called _Pine On_ “THE season six fic”. And things had exploded.

Suddenly, her humble story was getting hundreds, then thousands of hits. So many people were reading her writing, leaving comments and bookmarking and talking to her and about her. She had, out of the blue, an overwhelming mass of input. People who read her work, who waited eagerly for her to post, who had their own expectations and things they wanted from her. People who occasionally turned on her, when Peridot didn’t take the story in the direction they wanted.

More than once, Sage had taken her laptop from her, when she was absorbed in reading the hateful things posted by people who had once been her fans. Sometimes she would fall asleep, cradling Peridot’s laptop like a teddy bear to keep her from the cruel things she could find. Shaking thoughts of her suddenly-distant twin from her mind, Peridot clicked the “New Cheep” button and fired off a quick message to her followers.

_Hey guys, sorry for not updating yesterday. Today might not happen either. Moving & school & family stuff. But I promise I'll be back with some cool new stuff!_

Absently, she checked a few of her favorite fan accounts, thumbs-uped a few fanarts and jokes. But that couldn’t quite quell the fizzling static of anxiety still settling heavy in her chest. With a sigh, she closed her laptop and decided to work on something useful. Rifling through some of the cardboard boxes still shoved under her desk, she pulled out some clothes and set about picking an outfit to wear for the first day of class.

 _Start as you mean to go on_ , she thought as she laid out a pair of jeans, a CPH shirt, and a green sweatshirt jacket. It wasn’t like she was looking to impress anybody. All she was truly hoping to do at college was survive. Gingerly scooting the outfit to the side, she sat down on her bed. It squeaked. The mattress was smaller than she was used to, and thin enough she could almost swear she felt the poke of each individual spring. But beggars, as the saying went, couldn’t be choosers.

From where she had laid it on her pillow, her phone chimed softly, and Peridot picked it up. She had a text from Sage:

_Awake yet?_

Peridot snickered as she tapped out a response.

_Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?_

_Nah, decided not to go too crazy before classes even start. Good impressions & all. Heidi & me are working on decorating._

Heidi, again. Sage had hardly shut up about her roommate since they had gotten in contact. On some of their little before-campus excursions, when she’d been dragged along, Peridot had felt more like a third wheel than a sister.

Her eyes flickered briefly over to Lapis Launiu’s side of the room, bed neatly made but untouched, and wondered if she would like the other more or less if she attempted to be all buddy-buddy. She shook her head to chase those pointless musings away, and typed out a pedantic response just to annoy her twin.

_You mean “Heidi and I”_

_Whatever, nerd. We’re swinging by at 12 to pick you up for lunch. See you then. Xoxo, ect._

Lunch in Prism Hall wasn’t as bad as Peridot had dreaded. Heidi, for all Sage’s unnecessary fawning, knew what to do and where to go. She moved through the dining hall with confidence, and it was easy for Peridot to simply follow her lead. She led the conversation, too, chattering blithely about her classes and her friends with Sage hanging eagerly off every word and occasionally interjecting with a question. Peridot picked at her cheesy rice in silence, only speaking to offer to sister a goodbye as she headed back to Barnes Hall.

* * *

There was a boy sitting outside her room. The same boy. Steven. Lapis Launiu’s… brother? Friend? Babysitting assignment? Peridot wondered what he was still doing on campus, after move-in day, when classes were going to start tomorrow. _Where are your parents, tiny child?_

“Peridot!” He chirped when he saw her, bouncing to his feet with a beaming smile and his curls flopping into his eyes. She nodded an acknowledgment, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he stood there next to the door, watching her expectantly and rocking slightly on his toes.

“Is Lapis here?” Peridot asked.

“If Lapis was here, I’d already be inside, silly.”

She curled her fingers around her key, dangling on a lanyard around her neck, but didn’t move to unlock the door. She had already been through her fair share of _new_ and _other_ today. She was already practically overdosing on it. The last thing she needed was more social interacting, especially with this confusing, bubbly, too-young boy. All she wanted to do was curl up on her small, squeaky new bed, hide under her alien blanket, and maybe watch a few Camp Pining Hearts episodes on Movienet.

“Do you know when she’ll be getting here?”

Steven shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Peridot huffed. “Well, I can’t just let you in.”

His brow furrowed, and his head tilted like a confused puppy. “Why not?”

“Well,” she stammered, flustered, “Well, I don’t even know you. I can’t let somebody I don’t know into my room. Especially somebody who’s way too young to be hanging around college dorms.”

“Oh!” Oddly, Steven seemed to brighten at her words. “Oh, it’s okay! I practically live here. Well, not _here_ here, but close to here. I live in Beach City. It’s about… I dunno, five minutes from here. Around five minutes, anyway. You probably don’t know it, it’s tiny. But that’s where I live, me and my family, and some of my family works here. So I wind up over here a lot. I’m not, like, some kind of creepy dorm-stalker,”

Peridot blinked at him silently for a moment. He sure could talk fast for such a young kid. She decided not to respond, but took a step closer to the door anyhow.

“Please let me in,” he said, voice so sweet that Peridot wondered if someone’s tone could give her cavities, “I dunno when Lapis is gonna be back, and people keep giving me weird looks when they go by.”

She thought for a moment what her reaction would be, if she was the one stranded in a hallway, waiting for someone to let her in somewhere, strangers staring at her. Just imagining it made her want to shudder.

“Fine,” she sighed, unlocking the door.

“Yippee!” Steven squealed, and followed right in on her heels. He flopped onto Lapis’s bed like he had every right to be there, and watched with an odd amount of interest at Peridot settled on her own bed. “What are you going to college for, Peridot?”

She pulled her alien blanket over her lap, like it could somehow be a shield, A shield against…. The curious eyes of a preteen. Or her own anxieties. Or maybe the world itself. “English.”

He gasped, like this was the most exciting thing he’d heard all day. “Cool! Do you like to read? Oh, duh, you must like to read if you’re focusing on English. I like to read a lot, too. My friend, Connie, she showed me these books called The Unfamiliar Familiar, and those are real good, but I really, really like the No Home Boys, and…. And I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”

A blush swept over his face, cherubic cheeks turning rosy with embarrassment, and he hid his face in his hands.

Peridot felt a tug in her gut. Not the usual kind, the twinge that meant her anxiety was bubbling up in there again, or the almost-nausea that came from being the center of attention, but something akin to how she felt the first time she saw the scene where Pierre, standing apart from his fellow campers, watched his parents’ chauffeur drive away after drop-off. It was a gut-tug of… sympathy. A feeling of protectiveness.

“I do like to read,” she offered softly, a tentative extension of a reassuring olive branch. “I like to write, too. And watch TV. Mostly, I just like stories.”

Steven spread the fingers over his face and peeked out at her, huge dark eyes shining and innocent. The door opened and in swept Lapis Launiu. She didn’t even hesitate at seeing Steven on her bed, only let her fingers graze over his curls as she went to the foot of her bed and started rummaging through boxes.

When she didn’t find what she was looking for in the first box of the pile, she tossed it onto her bed with an annoyed grunt. “Make yourself useful,” she said to Steven. Or, at least Peridot assumed it was to Steven, but since her roommate hadn’t looked up from her search, it was spoken more in Steven’s general direction. Gingerly, the boy in question scooted around the box and down to the end of the bed, where he bent his head close to Lapis’s and they exchanged some whispers.

Peridot, relieved to no longer have Steven’s full attention  --  that felt a bit intense  --  but unsure how to behave around her new roommate, tucked one foot beneath her bottom and reached down to the desk to grab her laptop. Maybe, if she focused hard, she could ignore the pair of strangers enough to get some writing done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while since the first chapter, but life has kind of been kicking my butt since then and I went through a really bad spell. Hopefully though, from now own, I'll have more time and motivation to write! If you want to chat about this fic, or fandom in general, my Twitter username is abstractwtcolor !


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Valentine's Day. Y'all can have a little Lapidot. As a treat.

There's a boy in Pierre's space. The one-room cabin is full of bunk-beds, and there is another boy already putting the sheets on one of the bunks closest to the door. Pierre has never shared a room before, and he isn't happy about having to share now. He decides right away that this boy is his nemesis.

_From the script of Camp Pining Hearts, Pilot Episode, written by Xander Hershey_

* * *

It’s no use. Peridot can’t write with Lapis and Steven in the room. They take up too much space. The dorm room is tiny, the door hitting the head end of Peridot's mattress when it swings open. Even that isn't so bad, really. But mentally, she feels cramped. They take up too much room in her head. Too much of her mental energy is focused on monitoring them.

It wasn’t like she’d never written with people in the room before. It was just that, before, those people had been family. As familiar as breathing. When they were younger, Sage had even written fanfiction with her. They would cram together on one of their beds, pulling whichever laptop they were using back and forth between them. In those days, they had each taken charge of a certain aspect. Peridot had written all the dialogue, while Sage would follow along adding in the scene and context. Once, Peridot had written what she thought was dialogue for a slow dance scene and Sage had turned it into a game of tug-of-war.

Sage had never felt like an intrusion. She had never even felt like company. Now, with her enigmatic roommate and said roommate’s young sidekick only a few feet away, the words wouldn’t come. When Peridot had last worked on her pet project, she had been made to stop in the middle of a scene. Pierre and Percy had been in an intense conversation over strategies for the Color War and also whether Pierre’s emotionally-distant parents did actually mean well. The scene was meant to be heartfelt and funny and layered, all of which Peridot was generally talented at. But now, she simply stared at her laptop screen, pushing against a mental wall as the cursor blinked mockingly up at her.

_ Percy pushed his straw-colored hair out of his eyes and sighed. _

She couldn't even get Pierre to _move_. Her brain was stuck on INTRUDER ALERT. She felt stretched thin, like her skin was pulled too tight. And cold, despite the blanket on her lap. She glanced at her phone and wondered what Sage was up to. Probably choreographic fun little dances or something like normal people do with their roommates.

 _"Ah-ha!"_ Steven crowed, and Peridot looked up just in time to see him pull something gently free from one of Lapis's boxes. A lava lamp, black metal sandwiching a glass space full of blue liquid. "See, I knew you wouldn't have forgotten it. Safe and sound." Hopping up from the bed, he placed the lamp on Lapis's desk and plugged it in. He pressed the button on the base with a loud _click_ , and a little lightbulb flickered to life as the colored liquid began to bubble and move. Peridot, watched, entranced, as a soft light emanated from the lamp, the lazy motion of the bubbles oddly soothing. 

She smiled at the sight, then saw Lapis watching her and stopped.

* * *

It was entirely through a fluke of timing that Peridot's first-ever college class happened to be for the one course she was actually looking forward to taking. She had managed to convince her advisor, when they met to discuss her schedule for her first semester, that she would be able to handle Intro to Fiction-Writing, a junior-level course. After all, Peridot had majored in English so that she would hopefully be able to spend the next four years reading and writing. The professor who taught the class was an actual, published author. Peridot had read all three of her novels (about love and loss in Regency-era England) over the summer.

Sage had laughed when she saw Peridot curled up with them in her favorite reading spot by their window.

_"Are you reading something without a teenage boy on the cover?_

_"I'm branching out," she had hummed, turning a page without looking up._

_"Shh," Sage giggled, cupping her hand over Peridot's phone as though covering her lockscreen's ears, "Pierre will hear you!"_

_"Pierre is secure in our relationship," Peridot had grinned despite her attempts at faux-seriousness._

Thinking of Sage made Peridot reach into her pocket for her phone. Sage probably wasn't nervous. Still, she shot her twin a quick text as she made her way across the campus's perfectly-maintained pathways: _I feel like a stock photo of a college kid._

* * *

Everyone in the classroom looked like they had been anticipating this. Like they were waiting for a concert to start. Or they were at a midnight movie premiere. When Professor Zhou walked in, precisely at the appointed class time, Peridot was struck by how elegant she looked. Tall and slim, you could call her "willowy" without reaching. Her features were delicate, as though they'd been designed to make her interesting to look at. Her eyes were dark and intense, her black hair cut into a sleek, shiny bob, and a nose that Peridot, who had never given much thought to nose shapes before, could only describe as elegantly-shaped.

"So," she said instead of hello, sitting on her desk and looking out over the class, "Welcome to Intro to Fiction-Writing. My name, as I think most of you know, is Professor Zhou, but I'd really prefer if you call me Pearl. I recognize a few of you," She smiled at a few people who weren't Peridot, "But I'm excited to see what each of you can do. So, no time to waste, let's jump right in. Starting with a question that doesn't really have an answer  ** _\--_** Why do we write fiction?"

Around the room, a few hands shot up.

"To express ourselves," said an older boy in a beanie.

"Sure," Professor Zhou  _**\--**_ Pearl **_\--_**   replied, "Is that why you write?"

The guy squirmed a little, and Peridot thought she saw amusement in the professor's dark eyes.

"What else?"

"Because we like the sound of our own voices," offered a girl. She had bobbed hair like Sage's, maybe even cooler. Nothing like the frizzy mess hidden under the hood of Peridot's jacket.

Professor Pearl laughed, throaty and sweet, like she meant it. "Okay, yes, that's definitely why I write. That's why I _teach_." Everyone else laughed with her then. "Why else?"

 _Why do I write?_   Peridot tried to think of some profound, intelligent answer.

"To explore new worlds," Someone else said.

She thought of the sharp smell of cleaning products, of scratchy hospital sheets and the droning beep of machines.

"To explore old ones," Another voice called back. 

Professor Pearl was nodding. "To make sense of ourselves, maybe?"

"To set ourselves free."

Peridot shook her head. _To get free of ourselves._ Thought of a tiny, static-y TV, flipping aimlessly through channels. The brightly-colored title card, and awkward dialogue of a cheesy teen drama.

"To show people what it's like in our heads."

Percy and Pierre and finally, after so long of numbness, how it felt to have something grab her attention. Something that never really let go, that led to her falling headfirst into fandom, scribbling down how she thought things should go.

"To stop hearing the voices in our heads," said the boy in front of Peridot.

 _To stop,_ Peridot thought. _To stop being anywhere or anything at all._

Peridot looked down at the blank page of her opened notebook and tried to put into words how it felt when she was writing, when it was working, when it was good. When the words just poured out before she even really knew what they were. Like playing jump-rope, jumping just before the rope hit her ankles.

How it felt to be able to think of things beyond her circumstances, if even only for a little bit.

_To be somewhere else. To disappear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a little on the short-ish side but... Plot progression? Hints of backstory? That makes up for size, right?


End file.
